Bewley and Lambert lead Great Britain to Speedway of Nations glory

Great Britain (Robert Lambert, Dan Bewley, Tom Brennan, Simon Stead, Oliver Allen) clinched the Speedway of Nations title on home soil in Manchester, beating Australia (Jack Holder, Brady Kurtz, Max Fricke, Mark Lemon) in the grand final.

Lambert took the holeshot at tapes up and resisted pressure from Holder early on. Things got tight and while Lambert managed to stay in front, Bewley fell behind the Australian riders.

However, he pulled off an incredible move, going wide and then timing the cutback perfectly to dive down the inside, and shot past into second. Bewley defended for his life and the British duo brought a 1-2 over the line to claim the trophy for the second time after 2021 when they triumphed at the same venue.

“Twice in a row here,” Bewley said. “I rocked up in Gate 3, I didn’t think much of it and I feel like this was one of the best starts of my career. Pretty fun race and the crowd is unbelievable.

“I sat in third behind Jack [Holder] and obviously he was trying to help his team-mate out, so it’s a real tough spot to be in. And I know how good Brady [Kurtz] is around here and around everywhere, they’re two good riders.

“Brady [Kurtz] passed the two of us and I just nipped back up the inside. Sometimes when it’s your night, the door will open for you.

“What a night. Thanks to the crowd, it’s been pretty special throughout.”

Lambert and Bewley fend off Australia to secure world championship glory for Great Britain at SON

Team captain Lambert added: “The track suited us tonight, it was all nice and smooth. And we enjoyed it, we stayed calm throughout and Dan and I did the business.

“The 2022 SON defeat to Australia] was tough to take, but we repaid the compliment and managed to get gold. It’s such an incredible feeling to get it twice in a row here in Manchester.

“It’s been amazing to have the fans cheering on us down the back straight and home straight when we come to the start – I just want to say a big thanks to everyone who cheered on us throughout today and supported us.”

‘Pretty special’ – Lambert and Bewley revel in Speedway Of Nations victory

It was a slow start to the evening for Great Britain. While Lambert was the overall standout rider from the get-go, winning heats and racking up points, Bewley found the going hard early on.

The Cumbria rider got into his own though as the evening progressed and with the last set of heats to go, top spot was to be decided between Great Britain and Australia.

Lambert and Bewley threw the gauntlet with a 1-2 in the penultimate heat versus Latvia (Andzejs Lebedevs, Daniils Kolodinskis, Jevgenijs Kostigovs, Vladimir Ribnikovs).

Australia rose to the challenge though and responded with a 1-2 themselves, beating Poland (Dominik Kubera, Bartosz Zmarzlik, Patryk Dudek, Rafal Dobrucki) in the final heat.

With that, the Australia topped the overall standings, albeit by a point only, and progressed straight to the grand final while Great Britain faced Sweden (Fredrik Lindgren, Jacob Thorssell, Oliver Berntzon, Morgan Andersson) in the qualifier.

While Lindgren stormed to the win, Lambert and Bewley managed to hold Thorssell at the back and moved on to the showdown while Sweden had to settle for bronze.

“We trusted the process,” team manager Allen said. “We trusted what we were doing, Dan trusted himself which was important and we stuck with it.

“It was a nervous night because the scorecard was so tight; Germany were doing really well, Latvia were taking points off people … it was really close, nothing looked safe.

“But hats off to the boys, they were absolutely fantastic, Dan, Robert and Tom and all of the mechanics and backroom staff.

“We worked really hard on this, so I’m over the moon, so pleased we are world champions again.”

Third rider Brennan added: “[Lambert and Bewley] rode flawlessly tonight and it’s amazing to be a part of it.

“It’s a fantastic achievement, everyone worked really hard for this and to have the GB flag on my chest now feels really good.”

The SON title is the culmination of a hard journey back to the top for Great Britain, having just missed out to Australia at the 2022 SON and to Poland at the World Cup last year.

“Unbelievable,” team manager Stead said. “I just want to say a big thank you to the boys for the unbelievable amount of effort they put in over the course of this week, it’s a long week.

“But also the process that we have, the work we do behind the scenes all throughout the season. We’ve been building and building on it and we’re trying to improve every year despite a couple of silvers.

“To cap that off with a gold tonight, it’s been superb and the reward for such an amount of effort.”

Germany (Kai Huckenbeck, Norick Blodorn, Erik Riss, Mathias Bartz) were the big surprise of the evening with an excellent start to proceedings that saw them top of the leaderboard early on. However, their form slightly faded over the course of the event and they eventually missed out on the race-off by a single point.

Meanwhile, favourites Poland never quite got into their own as Grand Prix leader Zmarzlik in particular did not look himself and also fell to an unfortunate exclusion for a jump start.

‘Drama’ – Zmarzlik excluded from Heat 11 in SON final after touching tape

In the end, the reigning world champions, having won the World Cup last year in absence of the SON, finished in fifth.

Denmark (Mikkel Michelsen, Anders Thomsen, Rasmus Jensen, Nicki Pedersen) fell behind ambitions in sixth while Latvia rounded out the field in seventh.

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